The reference to any prior art in this, specification is not, and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that the prior art forms part of the common general knowledge.
Lottery is a form of gaming which involves the drawing of numbers for a prize pool.
In recent times, lottery tickets can be purchased online and over the Internet by clients. A known lottery system for enabling the online purchase of lottery tickets is disclosed in AU 2007221934. The system includes a number of clients connected to an agent server via the Internet. The agent server, in turn, can purchase lottery tickets for the clients from a state lottery administrator.
In the event that a winner is not identified for successive lottery draws, the prize pool of the lottery jackpots. In turn, there is increased demand for buying lottery tickets for larger jackpots. The increased online traffic when large numbers of clients attempt to concurrently purchase tickets through the agent server can cause the agent server to crash, thereby preventing the purchase of lottery tickets before the lottery draw. In particular, the traffic immediately before a lottery draw spikes significantly which slows traffic, and it is imperative that ticket orders are placed before the draw to ensure the integrity of the online ordering process. Otherwise, in the event of failed ticket, purchases, players will be dissuaded from purchasing tickets online in the future.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an online lottery system resistant to crashing owing to increased traffic during a lottery jackpot.